


beating hearts, promised tomorrows (i'll see you soon)

by chaevity



Series: LOVE ALONE ━ ONESHOTS [4]
Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: Bang Chan & Lee Felix are Siblings, Lee Felix Has Anxiety (Stray Kids), Lee Felix has Schizophrenia, Lee Felix-centric (Stray Kids), M/M, Medication, Mental Health Issues, Mental Instability, Schizophrenia, Suicidal Thoughts, a lot of ppl said it was good though so my confidence has been bass boosted, is this good? i have no idea, very self indulgent tho, yeah so uh go off ig
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-10
Updated: 2021-02-10
Packaged: 2021-03-15 16:48:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,623
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29192550
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chaevity/pseuds/chaevity
Summary: “You say you’re meant to be dead,” Jisung spoke, placing his hand over Felix’s rhythmic thumping, feeling the beatbeat beatbeatskipsonebeatbeat under his palm, “And yet your heart beats on.Felix, you don’t understand—your mind wishes to die, but your heart is telling you to live."In which Han Jisung helps Lee Felix's heart beat for someone other than his dead brother.
Relationships: Bang Chan/Lee Felix, Han Jisung | Han/Lee Felix
Series: LOVE ALONE ━ ONESHOTS [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2065656
Comments: 4
Kudos: 35





	beating hearts, promised tomorrows (i'll see you soon)

**Author's Note:**

> Since some of y'all don't read the tags-
> 
> TW: SCHIZOPHRENIA, SUICIDAL THOUGHTS, ANXIETY, MEDICATION

Felix felt his heart beating under his palm. 

The steady rhythm resonated through the empty hollows of his body—filling his skull, his ribs; he breathed it in and let it fill his lungs. 

Beatbeat. Beatbeat. Beatbeat.

He was hyper-aware of every surface touching his skin—the mattress he’s owned since he was six, his dark blue sheets that are ripping at the seams, the comforter decorated with old coffee stains and dried paint splatters. He feels everything.

Beatbeat. Beatbeat. Beatbeat.

“Stop thinking so loud,” a voice came from next to him. Felix peeled his eyelids open, immediately recognizing the voice. 

Beatbeat. Beatbeat. Beatbeat. 

“Chan. You’re not supposed to be here.”

“Who cares? I know what the doctors said. But what do they know?”

“More than us.”

“Don’t be like that.”

The only sound in the room was Felix’s beatbeat beatbeat thumping in his chest. Chan’s shrouded figure sighed at his silence, slipping under the covers next to Felix and pulling the boy’s back to his chest. 

“I just miss you, Lix. I know you miss me too.”

Felix sighed and turned, nuzzling his head into his brother’s figure and placing his ear right over where Chan’s heart should have been. 

Silence.

“Be honest with yourself, Felix. If you didn’t want to see me, why would you have lied to Mom about taking your medication?”

Felix huffed and immediately turned away, shuffling his body to the other side of the bed. He squeezed his eyes shut, feeling his own heart beatbeat beatbeat-ing in his chest. He knew that where Chan’s heart was supposed to be lay an absence, a vacant hole replacing his brother’s own beatbeat beatbeat.

“Leave me alone, Chan.”

Felix squeezed his eyes shut. When he looked over, Chan was gone. 

“Korean weather does not know how to make up its mind.” 

Felix muttered this to himself repeatedly as he pedaled toward his school, collar and tie loosened in the heat and feet pedalling as quickly as they could go. His earbuds were looped around his neck. 

Felix peeled one hand off of the handlebars and looked into his palm, staring at the two orange pills sitting primly in between his creases. 

“You don’t have to take them, you know.”

Felix sighed at the voice coming from his left, gently placing his hand back on the handlebar, careful not to drop a pill. “Chan, I told you. I don’t want to see you.”

“And yet you haven’t taken your medication.”

“You aren’t really here.”

“Aren’t I?”

Felix huffed. “Stop playing mind games with me. You aren’t real.”

“But I’m real to you. Doesn’t that matter some?’

Felix sighed and sped up, trying to leave Chan behind him. But the man simply jogged faster, keeping up with Felix’s pace. “You aren’t crazy. Your brain has adapted to the trauma. That’s pretty smart, if you ask me.”

“Chan, my brain hallucinates. That is not an adaptation. That is not a good thing. Stop answering questions you weren’t asked.”

“But I’m here, aren’t I? That is a good thing.” Felix pedals faster. “And I’m not talking. Your brain is. Right? That’s how this whole thing works?”

“Go away, Chan.”

“I don’t want to.”

Felix rolled his eyes and uncurled his palm, tilting his head back and swallowing the pills dry.

‘’I’ll see you tomorrow.’’

And he was alone again. 

Chan appeared again when Felix was lying in bed the next day, head tucked between his knees and hands curled around his neck. 

He was rocking back and forth while sobbing silently, palms pressed to his temples as he begged the banging in his brain to stop. 

“Felix.” 

He looked up, seeing Chan standing next to his bed, arms wide. 

“Channie.” He muttered, nickname slipping out as he reached toward the image of his older brother. 

Chan simply sighed and wrapped his arms around him, pulling Felix against his chest and swaying them slowly. 

“It’s okay. Channie’s here.”

“But you aren’t.” Felix sobbed harder, burying his face into his brother’s empty chest, only able to hear the silence beneath his tear-stained cheeks. “You aren’t here, and I don’t want to be here if you aren’t here.”

“But I am here. As long as you’re here, and this thing—” he tapped Felix’s temple “—is here, I’m here too.”

“You aren’t supposed to be, though. If I was anyone else, you wouldn’t be here.”

“But you’re you. You’re Felix. And I’m here.”

Felix hiccuped.

“I don’t want to be here anymore, Chan. I want to be with you. The real you.” 

It felt like someone had yanked Felix’s ribcage open to the sides and ripped out his heart, squeezing it until it was crushed jello in their hand. He felt heavy and his chest hurt and he couldn’t breathe, and the only person that could help him was there except he wasn’t.

“It hurts, Chan. It’s been years but I’m still seeing you. Why can’t I be with you anymore?”

“You’re here. I’m here. So you’re with me.”

“Chan…”

“You’ll keep being with me if you would lay off those pills.”

“I can’t. I have to get better.”

“Being better means losing me.”

“Chan…” Felix glared over at the bottle of orange pills sitting on his window stand. “I can’t afford to lose myself.” 

Chan loved to tell stories. 

He always had, even when he was alive. But now, with only Felix to talk to, it seemed like Chan was constantly telling him such tales—stories about trees, about beaches, about him and their mother and their bastard father and everyone. 

“Do you remember our Christmas photo? The one from when I was nine, and you were six. The one where you were curled up in Mom’s lap and I was curled in Dad’s, taken in front of the fireplace with the TV playing Home Alone: 2 in the background?”

It was pinned on their fridge. “Of course I remember that Christmas photo.”

“Remember when we roasted marshmallows after? In the fireplace?”

“Yes, Chan.”

“You used to say that was your happiest memory.”

It was. Felix remembered how the beatbeat beatbeat in his chest quickened as he chased Chan around the Christmas tree, their father in tow and cocker spaniel at their heels. Their mom belting out Santa Baby in the kitchen, fingers gripping a spatula and a turquoise apron wrapped around her waist. It was warm and scented and loving and home. That’s the last time it was all four at once. Or any of the four, actually.

“Why are you bringing this up now? It’s August.”

Chan shrugged from Felix’s chair, spinning in circles as he scrolled through Felix’s phone. “I was just thinking about Dad.”

“Why?”

“He left the day after.”

Felix sighed. “Yes, he did.”

“He said he’d stay.”

“So did you.”

Chan was gone. 

Felix was curled under their tree at the park (yes, their tree, it belonged to him and Chan and him and Chan only) when someone approached him. 

Felix quickly shooed his brother, who he’d previously been arguing with, out of his thoughts and turned towards the newcomer—a small boy with soft cheeks and slim, determined eyes. 

“Can I sit with you?” The boy asked—but the way he said it was more of a statement, more like he was telling Felix—I’m sitting down with you, under the tree you shared with the only person you’ve ever loved, and I will do it like it means nothing. 

That’s Chan talking. Felix shooed away his older brother once more and turned to the boy, who was now seated next to him in the dirt. 

“Why?”

The boy with full cheeks loaded with statements phrased as questions just shrugged. “You were frowning a lot.”

Felix waited for him to continue before realizing he was finished. “That’s your reason?”

“Yes.”

Felix paused. This straightforwardness was extremely unexpected—but not at all unappreciated. Felix felt a corner of his lips lift into a small smirk; he could hear Chan protesting in the background—but perhaps he was done listening to him. 

Beatbeat. Beatbeat. Beatbeat. 

“I’m Felix.”

“Han.” 

“One?”

“No, Han. That’s my name.”

“Your name is one?”

“I’m leaving.” Han spoke, staring into the park with his legs curled beneath him. He made no point to leave. 

He stayed. 

Felix saw Han once again at the neighborhood ice cream parlor, where Chan used to work.

There Chan was, standing at the counter, arguing with Felix with a towel thrown over his shoulder. Felix licked his mint-stained spoon, glaring at his brother and not saying anything. 

But Chan disappeared and in Han walked, bell tingling above him as he unbuttoned the top of his shirt. He didn’t look in Felix’s direction—he thought he missed him—but then Han was plopped on the stool to his right, peeling at the cracking red chair as he ordered an ice cream from a worker that wasn’t Chan. 

“Hello, Felix.”

“One.”

“That’s not my name.”

“You said it was.”

“I did not.”

Felix smirked into his ice cream. He swore he could see Jisung’s lip pick up at the side—maybe he was imagining things. Not again. 

“I’m sure, Han.”

“Don’t say it like that.”

“Why not?”

Han smiled at the worker that placed his ice cream in front of him, lips folding up at the sides and going down in the middle. It looked like a heart. 

“Because it’s impolite, loser.”

“We’ve met twice and we’re already calling each other losers?”

“Why loiter in the awkward stage when you can skip right to the bullying?”

“Fine. Loser.”

Han’s lips definitely quirked up that time. But before Felix could say anything more, Han was standing and walking toward the exit. Felix watched him go. 

But he turned, smiling wide. “Walk with me?”

Chan did not appear during their walk, surprisingly enough. 

Felix was expecting to be harassed in one ear and conversed with in the other, but it was just him and Han and their beating hearts. 

“My real name is Jisung, by the way.”

“Your real name? What’s Han, then?”

“My surname.”

“I would have given you Lee, but I doubt you’d ever be able to find me.”

“Han and Lee. What a wonderful pair.” Jisung swallowed another spoonful of ice cream “Your birthday is a day before mine, by the way.”

“How do you know?”

“This is not our first time meeting, Lee Felix.”

“Yeah, it’s our second. That does not make this any less creepy.”

Jisung giggled. “No, it’s more than our second too. We met in third grade.”

“How do you remember that?”

“I know what happened to your brother, Felix.”

He should have known.

“Oh. So this is a pity party, huh?”

Jisung shrugged, licking his ice cream spoon clean. “I always liked you, Felix. Before and after your brother died.”

So simple. So straightforward. So blunt. No dancing around the word, no avoiding the inevitable. Died. His brother was dead. And Jisung treated him the same, anyway. 

Felix decided he liked Jisung. 

“The crash happened right in front of my house. I didn’t see it, but I heard it. I called the cops. I was at the hospital, too.”

“I knew you looked familiar.”

“No you didn’t.”

“No I didn’t.”

They giggled together.

Felix paused momentarily. “If you two weren’t close, why were you at the hospital?”

Jisung licked his spoon again before tossing it into a trash can.

“You see him. Right?”

Felix stopped. “What?”

“I asked if you still see him. Because you do.”

“How do you know?”

“Lee Minho.” Jisung smiled. “My boyfriend was the other car in the crash.”

Oh.

“I still see him too, sometimes. You act the same way I do.”

And just like that, Felix could feel his heart making space for someone other than Chan. 

“I think we’re going to be friends, Lee Felix.”

“I think so too, Han Jisung.”

Jisung saw Felix unexpectedly one more time, but in a heavier context. 

Felix was standing on the railing of the Seongsan Bridge, eyes too full of tears to hold in the drops falling down his cheeks. 

Felix saw Jisung approaching out of the corner of his eye. He was fully expecting for him to panic, to try and pull him back, but instead, Jisung walked up right next to him and looked up to his eyes. 

“We can’t be friends if you’re dead, Lee Felix.”

Felix chuckled and wiped his eyes. “You do have a way with words, don’t you?”

Jisung shrugged. “I’ve been told once or twice.”

And then Jisung was climbing the railing and standing next to him.

“You should get down.” Felix whispered.

“So should you.” 

Felix shook his head. “No, I don’t think so.”

“I jumped once.” Jisung said abruptly.

Felix turned.

Jisung continued to stare into the horizon, unblinking and emotionless. “Right after the accident. Minho—brain Minho, not real Minho—tried to stop me, but I didn’t listen.”

Jisung looked at Felix, placing a gentle hand on his forearm. “I failed, don’t worry. I’m real.”

Felix swallowed and nodded.

“Let’s get down, Felix.”

Felix nodded again.

They went to the ice cream parlor.

Jisung and Felix swung their legs in a matched rhythm, the silence heavy. They hadn’t spoken since the bridge.

“So.” Jisung began. “You want to die.”

“The eloquence is overwhelming.”

“I do too.”

Felix stayed silent.

“Or I did, anyway. Not really anymore.” Jisung looked down at his ice cream, swirling it around with his spoon. “I never took my medication. For anything. I got better on my own.”

Felix watched Jisung—his natural rhythm, the way his fingers tapped the bar counter as one hand picked at the handle of his spoon. Jisung wasn’t saying anything, and Felix sighed. 

“I was almost in the car, too. It should have been me.”

“But it wasn’t.”

“It could have been. It should have been.”

“If it should have been you, it would have been you.” Jisung looked over at Felix's hands, laying on the counter. “That’s how the universe works. If something is supposed to happen, it happens. You were not meant to die that afternoon, so you didn’t.”

“You make it sound so simple.”

“Because it is.”

Jisung turned to face Felix, their knees brushing and shoulders bumping.

“You say you’re meant to be dead,” Jisung spoke, placing his hand over Felix’s rhythmic thumping, feeling the beatbeat beatbeatskipsonebeatbeat under his palm, “And yet your heart beats on.

Felix, you don’t understand—your mind wishes to die, but your heart is telling you to live.”

They kissed. 

They kissed with Chan at the counter, smiling at his brother quietly. They kissed with Minho seated in the back, staring at his boyfriend in awe. 

And then Felix and Jisung left them behind, hand in hand, fears conquered in two kisses for two beating hearts. 

And when they had to go their separate ways, they no longer feared the silence leaving would bring. 

But as they walked in opposite directions, Felix quickly stopped and turned. 

“Wait!” He called. 

Jisung paused and smiled over his shoulder. “Our time today has come to an end, my love.”

“But… When will I see you again?”

“Tomorrow?”

Tomorrow. 

Tomorrow was the protagonist in the story of promises; it was the unheard song of breaths unbreathed, of lives unlived, of hearts unbroken and still beating. The promise of tomorrow was everything Lee Felix needed; tomorrow was a swear, a sentence strung together and uttered in the depths of the morning—oh, how lovely, you’re still here, you’ve made it, and we shall survive the day together. 

Yes, tomorrow was theirs. And for once, Felix did not dread his beating heart for living another dawn. 

“Tomorrow.”

And his heart beats on.


End file.
